Growing Up During WW II (1941-1945)

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941. That was a month before my Sixth birthday. I was not terribly interested in the news. But, my parents reactions drew me in.
I remember taking the train with my mother to downtown Evanston who'd bring a bunch of aluminum pots and pans. Housewives from all around would bring their aluminum pots and pans and anything else made of aluminum to throw into to pile. The aluminum would be reprocessed into airplane parts, etc.It was part of the civilian war support effort. At the square in downtown Evanston was a a large area fenced in with a chicken netting fence that held the pile of goods.

I remember the lights out program that was to keep our cities from being visible at night to German or Japanese aircraft. The local warden would patrol his area every evening and remind everyone to keep shades down. My Grandmother, "Mom" Arns,was reprimanded one night because the shade in her room wasn't pulled down completely.

I remember rationing and ration books. Anything rationed like meat, butter, tires, gasoline had to be paid for in cash and ration coupons. I remember that red was for meat and other colors were for other rationed items like butter and sugar. Each member of the family was assigned a ration book every month. I had my own ration book, signed by me in my 6 year-old scrawl. When we went shopping, change was given for the ration stamps in little red or green plastic tokens worth one point each. I'm not sure how much a ration coupon was worth. Rationed items in the store had a price in dollars and a price in ration points. Gasoline and tires were rationed severely. Many people simply put their cars on blocks in their garages and didn't drive.

One time, when I was three or four years old, I was running around the alley behind the house and jumping on and off of a tree stump. Since I was the youngest and slowest, I was last in line. The stump had a hornets' nest in it. By the time I came along they were fully aroused and swarmed me. I guess I screamed pretty loud. My mother came running and began brushing the hornets off of my legs. Then since they'd gone up under my short pants she stripped me right then and there. Her actions saved me from a lot of hornet bites or stings. Then, it was into a bathtub with something like Epsom Salts in the water.

I'd play with some of my friends. We'd play in an empty lot down the street. It had lots of sapling trees and some mature trees. "Cowboys and Indians", "Pirates" and war against the "Wicked Huns" and "Dirty Japs", depending on the latest movie we'd seen. My allowance was 25 cents a week. In 1943-45, I could walk to downtown Wilmette and go to the Wilmette Theater for a movie that was 10 cents. A nickle got a bag of popcorn and a Coke. After the movie we'd all come out into the sunshine and play-act the movie as we remembered it. Then, stop at Walgreen's or Lyman's Drug Store soda counter and have a soda or sundae with our last dime.

As I got older, we'd play baseball in the street in front of our house. A man hole cover was home plate. The left field fence was Mrs. Brown's Hedge. If you hit the ball over the hedge, it was a home run. But the batter had to go to Mrs Brown's house to apologize and get the ball back. She was usually nice about it except, when we trampled her flowers. In the fall, we'd play touch football in the street on Saturday mornings. The game would come to a halt when the crown from Northwestern's Dyche Stadium came down Oakwood and turned on Park Ave , trying to beat the traffic on Green Bay Road and Wilmette Avenue. We'd "Boo" the cars for breaking up our game. Then sit on the lawn to watch them go by and sometimes try to count them. However, the line of cars would take over an hour to pass and effectively ended the game.

We walked everywhere. My folks didn't get a car until 1950. Dad retired from the railroad, angina and arthritis finally became too much. I remember that on a long walk, he would have to stop every so often and take a nitroglycerin pill. Our church, St. Francis Xavier, was about a mile away. Logan School where I went to grammar school was closer, about 4-5 blocks..

Logan let out for lunch for an hour. I'd run home as fast as I could to have lunch with Mom (my grandmother) and sit down next to her as one of her soap operas was going off the air. It's theme song was 'the Red River Valley'. "Come and sit by my side, if you love me" so I would scramble to next to her. If I didn't get home in time, I'd be devastated. Because I knew how much she loved it when I'd get home and sit by her side.

Mom and Mother baked bread every Saturday morning. they had quite an assembly line. They'd bake enough loaves for our family for a week and a couple for an old man down the street. A tantalizing memory is playing outside on a brisk Autumn Saturday morning and coming into the house for lunch where the kitchen was warm and filled with the smell of fresh bread. Often they'd bake a special treat for us kids, a small loaf of bread or a Parker House Roll for each of us. The rolls were special. One ball of white, one of whole wheat and one of rye. With plenty of butter on a warm roll, it was delicious. Ginny used to like to sprinkle sugar on the top to make it extra sweet.

My dad, a WW I veteran, was a Post Commander in the American Legion. Every July the post had a family picnic. Mother always made a batch of deviled eggs to take, among other things. To this day, I still think of them as "American Legion Eggs".
We'd go out to a picnic grove somewhere and the adults would sip a beer and talk to each other while the kids played "three-legged races" and other goofy games.